on old Dearborn Place, and I thought perhaps I could interest Lottie's
mother," concluded Jane.

"And so you can," said Lottie's mother, promptly. "I'll have Miss
Peters--but don't you find it a little warm here? Just pass me that
hair-brush."

Mrs. Bates had stepped to her single little window. "Isn't it a gem?"
she asked, "I had it made to order; one of the old-fashioned sort, you
see--two sash, with six little panes in each. No weights and cords,
but simple catches at the side. It opens to just two widths; if I want
anything different, I have to contrive it for myself. Sometimes I use
a hair-brush and sometimes a paper-cutter."...

She dropped her voice.

"Did you ever have a private secretary?"

"Me?" called Jane. "I'm my own."

"Keep it that way," said Mrs. Bates, impressively. "Don't ever
change--no matter how many engagements and appointments and letters
and dates you come to have. You'll never spend a happy day afterwards.
Tutors are bad enough--but thank goodness, my boys are past that age.
And men-servants are bad enough--every time I want to stir in my own
house I seem to have a footman on each toe and a butler standing on my
train; however, people in our position--well, Granger insists, you
know."...

"And now business is over," she continued. "Do you like my posies?"
She nodded towards the window where, thanks to the hair-brush, a row
of flowers in a long narrow box blew about in the draft.

"Asters?"

"No, no, no! But I hoped you'd guess asters. They're
chrysanthemums--you see, fashion will penetrate even here. But they're
the smallest and simplest I could find. What do I care for orchids and
American beauties, and all those other expensive things under glass?
How much does it please me to have two great big formal beds of
gladiolus and foliage in the front yard, one on each side of the
steps? Still, in our position, I suppose it can't be helped. No; what
I want is a bed of portulaca, and some cypress vines running up
strings to the top of a pole. As soon as I get poor enough to afford
it I'm going to have a lot of phlox and London-pride and
bachelor's-buttons out there in the back yard, and the girls can run
their clothes-lines somewhere else."

"It's hard to keep flowers in the city," said Jane.

"I know it is. At our old house we had such a nice little rose-bush in
the front yard. I hated so to leave it behind--one of those little
yellow brier roses. No, it wasn't yellow; it was just--'y